The Man from the Labs
by moonswirl
Summary: Prelude #7 to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, coming in July. (See author's note inside) An AU story set across the Arrowverse. In this installment: Jefferson Jackson finds himself in an unfamiliar land, where he is introduced to Dr. Martin Stein.


_**A/N:** I was meant to start writing and posting these back in January, however life happened, and progress didn't happen, so now here I am, a little over two months late but finally kicking things off! This coming July, as I've done for the past two summers, I'll be leading a 100-day countdown story set across the Arrowverse (featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow). I decided to do things a little differently this year. For one thing, the entire 100 days will be a single story spread over 100 days, one chapter to every day. And for another, the more planning I did, I saw the possibility and the need to lay in some ground work in the form of preludes._

 _Twenty-four prelude one-shot stories, six each to the four series (again, it was meant so that each month from January to June would have one of each show, but now… yeah ;)), posted every 5 (or 6) days._

 _The story this will all be leading to, **Once More Unto the Breach** , is an alternate universe story (not another Earth, ha :D), which will soon become evident enough. It's very possible you do not watch all four of the shows, but I highly encourage you to seek out the other preludes, as they will help to fill in this world I'm very excited to share with you guys!_

 _Alright, enough chit chat, let's go! If you have any questions, send them my way and I'll be happy to answer them!_

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 **THE MAN FROM THE LABS  
** _Prelude to_ _ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH  
_ (7 of 24)

 **Location:**  
 **BREACH EARTH, WAR QUARTER**  
 ** _(ARGUS designation)_**

For the first moments after he opened his eyes again, it felt as though he didn't know who he was anymore, the shock was so great. But then he would be lying there on the ground and he would think it out. Jefferson Jackson, that was his name. Everyone just called him Jax. He was raised by his mother all his life. His father… his father… For as long as he had lived, he had been told his father died before he was ever born. But he had a secret, and it was the thing that had landed him here today. He knew the truth. His father was alive.

He had shaken off the better part of the shock now, and he was able to slowly take in his surroundings. Wherever he was, it was completely unfamiliar to him. How had he gotten here? He didn't remember that part… Everything was just so fuzzy, it wouldn't come to him. He didn't even remember what he'd been doing just before, or where he'd been. All he could say for certain was that, at this very moment, he was waking up in a place he had never been before, feeling like he'd just been tossed through a tornado, and this wasn't Kansas anymore.

Standing on legs that still felt a little too shaky for his own tastes, he started walking. He was standing in the middle of a long corridor. He tried to think about where he might be. It might have been an office building? A hospital? It almost felt like a museum, to be honest. Except without knowing how he'd ended up here, all he would be able to think would be… why did I pass out in a museum? So he kept walking. Maybe he'd run into someone who could tell him where he was.

It wasn't getting any clearer to him as he kept walking. He would have hoped that something would manage to jog his memory, but it wasn't happening. It still all just felt like something very, very wrong had happened. And then… and then he heard a noise. It reminded him of… a remote-control car? No, that wasn't right, but it definitely reminded of something with a motor… and wheels…

"Can I help you?" a voice inquired, and he turned in the direction of the sound to discover he hadn't been far off at all. Standing – well, sitting – before him was a bespectacled man in a motorized wheelchair. He was looking back at him in such a way that Jax couldn't say for sure if he was upset to find him there or simply curious.

"I, uh… I don't know how I got here… I don't know where 'here' is…" he admitted, still looking around, even though the walls still had no distinguishing features to them, no more than they'd done as he'd walked along them a moment before.

"Stein Labs," the man in the wheelchair declared. "My name is Doctor Martin Stein. And you are?" So not a museum, but a lab… That somehow didn't make things any more encouraging. And this was his place, he had to guess, so what would this look like to him? Someone breaking in?

"Jax," he replied, "I mean… Jefferson Jackson, that's my name, but… Jax." The man looked at him in silence for a few moments, his face still unreadable.

"Right, then, Mr. Jackson, please follow me." Without another word, he had guided his chair to head back the way he'd come from, leaving Jax little other choice but to follow him.

He was led to a room, filled with screens and instruments, and a sort of hospital bed, where the man indicated for him to sit. When Jax looked apprehensive about it, the doctor explained. He had seen him there on security monitors, unconscious, and he'd come to see to him. If anything was wrong with him, he would get to the bottom of it. After a moment's hesitation more, Jax had gone and taken a seat on the edge of the bed. It was low enough that the other man would be able to come and tend to him. He looked like he might have been somewhere in his sixties, his hair gone to gray. Even so, and regardless of his physical condition, there was something solid about him. This was a man well secured in his abilities, and it left Jax feeling like no matter how confused he was at the moment, he was in good hands.

"So then, Mr. Jackson," Dr. Stein spoke as he examined him, "Are you a soldier?" It was a strange place for him to start his guessing, though after a moment it seemed like maybe even the doctor thought the same thing. "Or perhaps a rebel?"

"I… what?" Maybe he had bumped his head, that would explain the memory loss, and why nothing made sense. Dr. Stein was staring at him again, probably pegging him for a head case, too. He kept staring, and staring, until it felt just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. And then he rolled off without a word, returning a moment later with an instrument. He wanted to run a blood test. "Why?" Jax asked, skeptical now about his previous assessment.

"A hunch," was his reply, and the mad thing was Jax found this enough of a satisfying answer to let him do it. So his blood was drawn, and the test was done, much faster than he would have expected it to go. He barely had the time to take in the room again, only noticing that there was a window, and that for some reason it had been boarded, before some sort of bell sounded, and then Dr. Stein was looking at a screen, which must have shown the results. Jax had gone to take a look, too, even if he didn't expect to understand much of what he'd see. Dr. Stein seemed to already have learned all he needed to learn from the test, as he turned to face him even as he was circling the workstation to get a look at the screen, which now only showed the logo to Stein Labs again.

"What did it say?" Jax asked.

"You really don't remember how you got here, Mr. Jackson?"

" _No_ , I told you, I just woke up back there, and before, I… I…" He was seeing something, in his head, a vague sort of impression more than anything, but it felt important. "My father…" he breathed, the thought come into words before he could stop it.

"What about him?" Dr. Stein asked, almost inciting him to think deeper.

"I saw him," Jax blinked, grasping on to that small bit of recollection like it was everything. "They told me he died, years ago, but it was him, I know it was. I know, and… when he saw me, he recognized me somehow. And he ran. Why would he run?" he asked himself, feeling a pinch at his heart.

"Did you go after him?"

"I did," Jax confirmed. "But then…" He shook his head. He couldn't remember. He looked back to Stein. "What did that test say?" The man stared at him, as he tended to do, and after a while Jax couldn't help but find it all a bit infuriating, all the more so when instead of answering him, he posed another question, or at least a request.

"Tell me about your life, Mr. Jackson." He threw his arms out in frustration.

"What's it like? It's been just me and my mom, all my life, and it was all fine, we got by, but then I…" He stopped, realizing… remembering… That memory he had, his father, following him… That hadn't been today, no, it was a few years ago now, he remembered it, because… that was the day that had changed everything. Jax had tried to follow him, and then… and then there'd been… "That light," he again spoke his thoughts, and the other man sat up in his chair.

"Yes?"

"It came out of nowhere, and I wasn't thinking, I just kept running after him, and then… I ended up in the hospital, worried my mom like you wouldn't believe."

"I believe it," Stein spoke low, knowingly.

"After that, I started… I got this power, see, it…" he turned sideways, to an open spot in the middle of the room, held up his hand, and there in the open space, a small blue breach opened. Stein observed this, with the intrigue of a scientist. After a few seconds, Jax allowed it to close again. "I guess whatever happened after I chased my dad, left me with the ability to do that."

"Astonishing," Stein declared, though at the same time it seemed he had expected at least a part of this. In his blood, probably…

"I've been using it to try and help people, around the city, when they're in trouble." It was possibly the thing he was proudest of, even if very few people knew who he was or that he was the one to do the things he did. But hey, one way or another, he was a hero. Vibe, they called him.

Stein took this in for a moment, quiet, and then he sort of nodded to himself before turning his chair and once again expecting Jax to follow him. With no other option left to him, Jax followed.

Making their way together along the halls of Stein Labs, Jax became aware before long that he had yet to see anyone else but the two of them. When he pointed this out to Stein, he asked if he was the only one who worked there.

"Of course not," the doctor had chuckled, as well as if he'd claimed the whole idea ridiculous. This didn't specifically tell him who else worked here and where they were, but Jax didn't feel at ease to make any other inquiries for the time being, so he didn't. he just went on following the man who'd found him, to wherever it was that he was leading him.

As they went on, the best guess he could make was that they were headed outside. The further they went, the nearer they were to the doors, to the outside world, and this meant more windows, these ones boarded up as well. It also seemed as though a nearby section was in the process of being rebuilt, like it had all come crashing down somehow.

"What happened here?" he pointed to it, but Stein didn't reply.

They came to the exit now, and Jax finally started to get some sense of dread rise in him. The exit out of the building required several scans and codes before it would even be allowed to open, but then, at last, it did, and immediately the stillness of the inside was shattered with the chaos of outside. He only had to look for a few seconds to know something wasn't right. This couldn't be. This wasn't… It was…

"Where are we?" he asked, as Stein motioned for him to step back inside, the better for him to shut the door again, locks and all.

"Not as far from home as you might think and yet so very far away, too," was Stein's answer, before he started back the way they'd come, once again leading Jax along to follow.

"What does that mean?" Jax asked. The doctor sighed for a moment before attempting to explain.

"You have travelled to another Earth, Mr. Jackson," he put it as simple as possible to begin, as to the point as he could get, though this in itself was an invitation to confusion. It was simple to him, but it was something new to his young friend. So he started laying out the story in what way he knew how to explain it, finding with some relief that he was in the presence of someone who at the very least had some knowledge which leant itself to piecing things together. He'd had some shakier attempts in the past. Still, when it came down to it, the whole thing could be boiled down to what some had decided to label 'Main Earth' and 'Breach Earth,' and then the quarters of this second Earth, as numerous as they were.

"So instead of breaching from one location to another, I breached to another Earth," Jax summarized, looking at once relieved to understand what had happened to him and baffled by everything this would now mean for him, for everyone. "I don't even know how I did it, how am I supposed to get back?"

"It's alright," Stein assured him. "I can get you home again. Although…" There was a moment of quiet hesitation in the man, but then whatever he was about to say was never spoken, and he moved to another subject. "Truth is, I've been to your Earth myself. I've travelled to many other quarters of my Earth as well."

"You can do what I do?" Jax asked, surprised, trying not to stare at the man's chair as he did.

"No, not exactly," the man smiled to himself, "But I have my own way of crossing borders."

It was by no means the whole story, but then he saw no need to divulge everything. Not even his associates knew about all his travels, or about why they mattered to him as they did.

Of all the mysteries he had crossed and solved over time, the one which continued to elude him, time and again, was the cause of the changes he underwent whenever he crossed these borders. He still remembered the very first one he'd crossed, and the immediacy of the change. As soon as he had gone across, into what he now knew to be Haven Quarter, he discovered sensation in his legs, that he could walk as though he had never stopped, had never lost the ability of it as he did here. In every other quarter he had visited, this was also the case, and every time he returned to War Quarter, without fail, as soon as he would be back, he would be bound to his chair all over again. More than his being able to walk again though, he had realized over time, over more and more quarters crossed, that even his traits, his behavior, wasn't entirely the same there either. In every quarter, on either Earth… he was a whole other version of himself. He was only ever completely himself when he was here, in War Quarter… and this always came at the price of his legs.

As much as he might want to leave this quarter behind, literally run off to greener pastures, he would never dare it. For one thing, he would not be himself out there, not really, and for another… All the work he'd done here, setting himself apart from other efforts of combat within this war they'd been stuck in, it sometimes felt, for as long as he could remember… he could never abandon the position he and Stein Labs had occupied and continued to occupied, what they stood for… for better or for worse…

In time, they would find a way to send Jax back to his Earth, both of them learning from the experience and from each other. By the time they were sent to send him back, it was almost bittersweet. For a few moments they sat there, neither rushing to set things in motion.

"Tell me what you can about your father," Stein eventually instructed his young new friend. "If he is somewhere on this Earth as you suspect, I will find him for you."

"You will?" Jax asked, surprised… touched. Stein bowed his head, pressing a hand to his shoulder. He had a moment's thought for his daughter, for the relationship they had… for the one he wished they had. He and Lily might never have found their way back to one another, but maybe this young man here could get his own miracle.

It had been a couple of years now, since the first time Jax had breached off Main Earth and met Dr. Stein for the first time. And for the promise the old man had kept, tracking down the elder Mr. Jackson and enabling his reunion with his son, Jax had become an occasional visitor to Stein Labs, forging bonds between his team and the doctor's which, perhaps, would one day come to be beneficial for countless others.

 **THE END**

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 _Check out the next prelude, coming April 10th!_


End file.
